Klarinet Archive - Posting 000795.txt from 1999/04

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: RE: [kl] Improvising Mozart
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1999 18:17:30 -0400

> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.69
> Subj: [kl] Improvising Mozart

> Improvising Mozart
>
> I also saw that hour show on the genius of Mozart. It was, of course,
> way too short!
>
> Mozart was known for his ability to improvise. Sometimes there were
> competitions between artists to do so. Who came off the winner- of
> course MOZART.
>
> What Robert Levin showed of a MSS of a pupil to have scribbled what she
> heard of Mozart do in the slow movement in the KV 488, was quite
> illuminating.
> I don't think, however, that I could improvise like that in 622.
> I can barely play the notes as they are, so for me to improvise.?
>
> A few years ago, Vladimir Horowitz played that same concerto in a film
> made in Rome.
>
> The novelty was that he played Mozart at all.
>
> My late friend, Leo Barkin , a wonderful piano accompanist, told me that
> Horowitz never played Mozart at all. Leo said that Horowitz said that
> he didn't understand Mozart.
>
> In this TV film, filmed in Rome, he played this same concerto 488
> magnificently. On the show afterwards he said that for him, there is
> only Mozart.
>
> Horowitz died a year or two after this film was made. I guess he didn't
> get to learn of lot of Mozart
>
>
> We know that many players put in additions and other ornamentation.
> Baermann played the concerto. Did he improvise on it also?
> I once saw a copy of the Mozart concerto edited by Baermann. I remember
> one passage that was different. In the first movement , there is a
> chalumau passage, E-G-E/-B -A#-B-A#@-----.
>
> Everyone knows this one. What I saw in Baermann's edition was:
> E-B-E/-B-B-C-B-B-F#-B-A/G-E.
>
> This change is to be found in Giamperi's Mozart version.
>
> To be candid, I'm happy with the notes of the Concerto as they exist,
> and try and do my best.

But Av, everyone is happy with the notes of the concerto as they
exist. One does not improvise because one is unhappy with the
notes, nor does one improvise to improve on Mozart or because
he was not capable of writing an intelligent melody without my help.

One improvises in Mozart for an entirely different purpose. So
what your role should really be is to understand that purpose
and THEN decide if improvisation supports it. If you approach
the problem that the purpose of improvisation is to make
exquisite music even more beautiful, you are going to go down
the tubes very swiftly.

>
> --
> Avrahm Galper
> TONE TECHNIQUE AND STACCATO
> THE UPBEAT BAERMANN MELODIC SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS
> http://www.sneezy.org/avrahm_galper/index.html
>
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=======================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
=======================================

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